Steiner Studies: Band 1 - 2020

The workshop ›Anthroposophy‹, held in Fribourg on October 18 and 19, 2019 at the invitation of Helmut Zander, had three intentions: 1. To review the status of academic research on Rudolf Steiner’s work. 2. Based on such a review, to formulate questions and priorities for academic research on Rudolf Steiner’s work. 3. To use workshop contributions from different academic research areas for a discussion about how Steiner’s thinking connects with contemporary currents and issues in science. The participants unanimously agreed that the expectations placed on the project were met: the workshop initiated a substantive and constructive exchange of research projects on Steiner’s life, work and impact, and addressed the possibilities and limits of communicating anthroposophy and academic science. The participants are planning to publish the proceedings of the symposium sometime during 2020.

This paper undertakes a critical analysis of approaches to education that claim to foster for their students »ideas and predispositions toward global citizenship«. International education forms the ground and broad context for this discussion, while a specific focus is given to the question of how global citizenship might be understood and realized in the context of Waldorf education. Waldorf education has not received a significant degree of critical attention to date – either in relation to the field of international education or that of education for global citizenship. A typology developed by Oxley & Morris (2013), which clusters attributes and types of global citizenship into two main categories, is employed in this paper in order to undertake an initial analysis of how global citizenship might be theorized in the context of Waldorf education. Existing studies and research literature about Waldorf education provide the main sources for this analysis. An emphasis is given in this analysis to articulations of Waldorf education and a distinction is made between educational aims, approaches and experiences (as reported in the literature) and Waldorf schools. Waldorf education continues to grow and expand its international presence. The fact that many Waldorf schools indicate that they have the development of global citizenship as one of their educational aims invites a critical consideration – such as this – of how these aims relate to the wider global citizenship education discourse.